Fort Myers

We have been sunning ourselves down on the Gulf Coast in Fort Myers. I think you need a fortress to get away from the election hype. Although both candidates have laid out their plans, their adverts are still knocking one another. It looks at the moment if Obama has it in his hands to lose, but only time will tell.

Its very nice and relaxing down on the beach at the fort. Nice beaches all the way down to Naples. We had lunch on the dock in the old fisherman's area - called Tin City, I think. We lounged around, watched the sunsets and wandered back to the cocktail bar for drinks and appetizers. Pretty relaxing - I was relaxed as a newt.

Visited the Calusa nature centre - rescued birds and animals and a planetarium. OK but pretty basic, next to no visitors. I don't know if they can keep going at $9 per adult and only 20 visitors per day. Perhaps they do better in the summer. The planetarium was very relaxing, I missed most of the moons of Jupiter as I was staring at the back of my eyelids. I wonder if I could get a planetarium projected onto my bedroom ceiling. Must be better for you than all them tablets!

Linda likes to lecture everyone in the family about the risks of tanning. Guess who got burnt on the last day? I just could not bite my tongue(who me?), so I was in the doghouse.

We seem to be getting to grips with some of the financial crisis in some shape or form, I guess someone's making money out of it. I don't really understand all the figures, but I read that about 2% are in foreclosure, lets say that's some 3-4 million homes worth, at a guess 600 to $800 billions. Is this enough to make banks in every country (except Iran) in trouble. I know other countries have bad home loan debt, but nothing like the level of the US. It doesn't feel like it to me, yet all the banks are rushing to grab tax payers money. It smells fishy to me.

I suspect we are about to run into a retail crash in the US as well. There are already loads of retail outlets in the shape of malls, yet massive new malls continue to be built. I can just see the Mall company board meetings - "We are having a downturn - spending is dropping off - malls have so few people in them. What shall we do? I know, lets build more malls" Where will it all end? Tumbleweed malls. I guess. Still, the government can buy all of these with tax dollars and house foreclosed families. Sounds like "Dawn of the Dead" with CEO's and bankers playing the parts of the zombies.